2 Crucial Truths About Salvation:

1) Before you can receive salvation, you must arrive at the understanding that you need it desperately.

2) Jesus is, without fail, the Savior of the broken and desperate who recognize their need and run after Him with abandon.


Questions for further contemplation and application after the message:

1) Jesus called His original disciples to follow Him in the simplest of terms. Literally, He said to them “Follow Me!” (Matthew 4:19; John 1:43, etc.). How similar do you find that appeal to His calling of Zaccheus in Luke 19:5? What is necessary to follow after Jesus as a disciple?

What are the things that often restrain people from salvation? You may wish to consult some of the following passages to help formulate your answer: Luke 10:30-37; 12:13-34; 14:25-35; 18:9-34.

Have you wholeheartedly followed after Jesus? If not, what is holding you back?

2) Zaccheus and Bartimaeus (the blind man referenced in 18:35-43; see Mark 10:46-52) knew very different life circumstances when they encountered Jesus. They did, however, share one thing in common, and that was a sense of desperation to meet Him (note the apparent similarity in 18:38-39 and 19:3-4). How do you think they were driven to the same point in understanding the need they shared for redemption?

Who convicts unbelievers of their need for Christ? Consult John 16:8-9.

3) How would you describe biblical repentance?

Is it necessary for salvation?

Who produces it in the life of the believer?

What does it “look like?"


Select helpful resources:
Bock, Darrel L. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Luke 9:51 – 24:53. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996.
MacArthur, John F. Luke 18-24. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1985
Morris, Leon. Tyndale New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.